Go Wild for the Junior Civic Mayor Amy Enwright
Children from Bentley High
Street Primary School taking part in the Junior Make Your
Mark vote with Participation Officer (Doncaster Council), Amy Enwright, Cabinet Member for Children,
Young People and Schools,
Nuala Fennelly and Angie
Davies, Mental Health Lead Practitioner for the school.
In November 2019 Doncaster ran the Junior Make Your Mark campaign for the very first time. Our young people get involved with the National Make Your Mark campaign for youth every year and we are proud to say that we are the first local authority to run a junior version for primary aged children. Both campaigns allow local children and young people to vote for an issue that is most important to them and that they would most like to improve. This year we received over 18,000 combined votes for both campaigns. 13,108 young people took part in the national campaign, which is the highest amount of votes that Doncaster has received. We also had 5,000 children take part in the junior version, a great success for the first year!
Interestingly, both campaigns came out with the same top result, with
6,909 children and young people telling us that they want to ‘improve and protect our environment’. Our Junior Civic Mayor, Alfie Turton, was one of the children that voted to improve the environment in the Junior Make Your Mark campaign. Alfie says, “I voted to improve the environment because I think Doncaster needs to stop using plastic and reuse more items because the sea is full of plastic and it’s damaging the environment. My school already does things to be eco-friendly such as recycling and reusing paper. They try to encourage us to use less plastic and take our own reusable bottles into class. At home we try and help the environment by buying things second hand, by not buying things we don't need and recycling."
children to attend. The event will take place on Friday 6th March 2020, from 9:30am-11:30am, at Bentley MyPlace, Askern Road, Bentley, Doncaster, DN5 0HU. Alfie will headline the event and special guest, Ed Miliband MP will be in attendance to hear all about the positive eco-based work that schools are doing already. We are sure he will also take great interest in any other ideas that the children may have to improve our environment, so that we can all make a real difference to our borough. If you would like to know anything else about any of the information mentioned in this article, or if you feel that you could contribute to our ambition to become the most child friendly borough in any way, please email: yourvoice@doncaster.gov.uk.
Following the Junior Make Your Mark campaign we have decided to hold a ‘Primary Network Conference’ for primary school
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